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<title>Trust by al_fletcher, athenril_of_kirkwall (al_fletcher)</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25639228">Trust</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/al_fletcher/pseuds/al_fletcher'>al_fletcher</a>, <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/al_fletcher/pseuds/athenril_of_kirkwall'>athenril_of_kirkwall (al_fletcher)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Aether Effect (With Smut) [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Dragon Age II - Act 2, Dragon Age II - Act 3, F/M, M/M, Prompt Fill, Romance, Tantervale Knot, Tumblr Prompt</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 11:21:51</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>893</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25639228</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/al_fletcher/pseuds/al_fletcher, https://archiveofourown.org/users/al_fletcher/pseuds/athenril_of_kirkwall</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Some conversations between our favourite gang of dysfunctions. Naked.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Fenris/Isabela (Dragon Age), Fenris/Male Hawke, Male Hawke/Isabela</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Aether Effect (With Smut) [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1227941</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>DA Drunk Writing Circle Prompt Fics</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Trust</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Fill for m!Hawke/Fenris, "Trust"</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Hawke and Isabela lay naked under the sheets of his bed, him staring up at the ceiling and her gazing at his profile distractedly.</p><p>Feeling the silence hanging in the air, he looked at her through the corner of his eye as he asked, “Something on your mind?”</p><p>“Oh, nothing really.”</p><p>Hawke raised an eyebrow as he turned to face her. “You’re <em>clearly</em> lying. You’ve been doing nothing but staring at me for the past few minutes so I’ve either broken out in hives or there’s been something you’ve been meaning to ask me.”</p><p>Isabela shrugged her free shoulder, saying, “I guess you’re right. I suppose I did have something of a philosophical question in mind.”</p><p>“Ah, the clarity that comes post-coitus, no doubt,” Hawke said mirthfully. “Well, what great question of the world did you have in mind?”</p><p>She shook her head. “Not of the world. Of us.”</p><p>“Of <em>us?</em>”, Hawke asked concernedly.</p><p>Gently slapping his shoulder, Isabela said, “Oh, look at you, getting all worried. I’m not about to propose. I just had a simple question, really.”</p><p>Hawke was sitting up, his back at the headboard, whilst Isabela draped an arm over his midriff as she considered him from below.</p><p>“Out with it then,” he said, voice only half-joking.</p><p>Looking deep into Hawke’s eyes, Isabela asked, “Do you think it’s possible to for two people to trust each other? Completely?”</p><p>Hawke’s throat felt dry. “Well…I trust you to have my back in a fight, of course, but…”</p><p>“I didn’t mean specifically you and me, but maybe I was. I don’t know,” Isabela said carelessly. “But, generally speaking, could two people know each other so well that even if one of them did something truly terrible, the other could forgive them, without needing to ask any further?”</p><p>Knitting his fingers together and stretching behind his head, Hawke said, “I don’t know, Isabela. It’d be asking a lot—from both of them. I’m sure there must be people like that out there. Hm, maybe not in Kirkwall. Acting like that’s sure to get a knife in your back.”</p><p>Rolling over and gazing at the ceiling, Isabela muttered, “I suppose not.”</p>
<hr/><p>“Fenris,” Isabela asked, “Do you think it’s possible for two people to completely trust each other, no matter what?”</p><p>“Why in the world are you asking me?”, the elf retorted. “If you want deep soul-searching along with sex, ask Hawke. We both agreed—”</p><p>“Yes, I know,” Isabela said pointedly. “And I <em>did</em> ask Hawke. I didn’t get a particularly meaningful answer from him.”</p><p>“Well, you’re not getting one here either,” Fenris said, crossing his arms over his bare chest. “Now, unless we’re going to get a drink or go another round…”</p><p><em>“Relax,”</em> Isabela said. “Let’s do both. You get more of that stuff from Nevarra we had last week, and I’ll lay down some fresh sheets.”</p><p>Letting the cloths fall off his form as he got up, Fenris asked, “If I get that out instead of the usual dross, will you perform a Tantervale Knot this time?”</p><p>Isabela raised an eyebrow. “What <em>is</em> it with men and seeing a woman’s ankles by her head, anyway? I’ll have to warm up if you want that, friend.”</p><p>“I find it more amusing than anything, really,” Fenris chuckled, pausing in the doorway with the light outlining his nude form and illuminating his markings. “And, well, in response to your question.”</p><p>“Oh?”, she asked, halfway through pulling her thigh to her chest.</p><p> “I don’t have an answer for you, but if you dare to hurt Hawke—”</p><p> “—I <em>won’t</em>—”</p><p> “I <em>will</em> rip your heart out,” he warned, leaving for the cellar, adding, “Knot or no knot.”</p><p>Isabela slowly released her leg, staring into the empty doorway he left.</p>
<hr/><p>It wouldn’t be long until Hawke truly realised what Isabela had meant, what with qunari tearing the city to pieces and the secret to allaying their fury laying with her and her decisions, and he knew his answer to her question, or so he thought.</p>
<hr/><p>Some years later, Fenris lay beside Hawke, the Champion unable to sleep as he kept turning over Anders’ purported solution to his co-existence with Justice…or Vengeance, as it might be, over in his head.</p><p>“Hawke,” he asked, “do you think it’s possible for two people to trust each other? Completely?”</p><p>Hawke looked over. “Now what’s brought this on, Fenris?”</p><p>“I…I’m not sure, actually. It just came to mind,” he said, shifting under the sheets.</p><p>“If you’d asked me a few years ago, I wouldn’t have had an answer for you. But I think I know what the question actually means now,” Hawke said.</p><p>“And?”</p><p>“I don’t know about the rest of the world, Fenris, but I trust you,” he said, turning over to him. “Given everything we’ve been through and everything we’ve learned about each other, I can’t think of a safer pair of hands besides yours, right here and now.”</p><p>“And I you,” Fenris said. “You might be the only person in the world I can trust, really.”</p><p>Hawke gazed into empty air, thinking of his rendezvous at the Gallows that night and how it might test those very promises.</p>
<hr/><p>That very test came, and when Hawke spoke the simple truth to Fenris even as they initially stood on opposite ends of that pivotal conflict, his trust was proven beyond measure.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Tumblr: https://athenril-of-kirkwall.tumblr.com/post/625206491770699776/</p></blockquote></div></div>
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